George Melies as Magician

The New York Times published beautiful photos from the making of Martin Scorsese’s latest film, “Hugo,” which features Ben Kingsley as the magician and filmmaker Georges Méliès.

The online gallery includes twoimages of Méliès’ wife, Mama Jeanne d’Alcy (played by Helen McCrory), levitating or being levitated, which is great to see. Melies owned the Robert-Houdin Theater, which was, of course, the theater of Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. Scorsese told the Times Robert-Houdin also performed the levitation:

One of his great tricks was the levitation. But most magicians know how it was done. Méliès did it also.